


day #54(?)

by fluffysfics



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/M, Possible Hallucinations, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, based off that new promo pic, or...possible telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: The Doctor has been in prison for...a while. Tired, drained, and unmotivated to escape, she fills her days mostly by staring at the ceiling.Until an old best enemy shows up liven up her day.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	day #54(?)

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the prison jumpsuit and the tally marks from the Revolution promo pic and I just HAD to write this,,,,is it weird that I kind of like the outfit on her?

It had been fifty-four days. Or- no, was it sixty-four? Four hundred and six? Five thousand and four?

It had been a lot of days. And the Doctor felt like she was losing her mind. 

The tally marks on the walls were building up, but she wasn’t even sure she was doing them right, anymore. Eight lines, two crosses- wasn’t it supposed to be four lines, one cross? A box of lines with a slash through the middle? Three dots, three dashes, another three dots?

No, no, that was Morse code. SOS. She could do with having her soul saved right about now. Souls? Maybe two hearts meant two souls. Maybe she had a soul for each regeneration. Fourteen souls, thereabouts, or...no, not fourteen, she reminded herself. So many more than that. 

Maybe she was just going mad. 

She missed her sonic. She missed her shirt with the rainbow on it, and she missed her coat. Red wasn’t a bad colour, but the prison jumpsuit was scratchy and slightly too hot, impossible to forget about. 

The Doctor had never much been one for routine, but she would have done _anything_ for a stable rhythm in here. Food seemed to arrive randomly, guards never patrolled on a steady schedule, even sleep didn’t seem to come as evenly as it used to. And that was saying something, seeing as she hardly slept regularly in the first place. 

In the beginning, however long ago that had been, she’d spent a lot of time pacing. Pacing, running, bouncing off the walls, yelling and shouting and singing. Everything and anything she could to keep her energy up. Then, she was pretty sure they’d started putting drugs in her food to keep her quiet, because all that running around had started to get _exhausting_. 

So now, the Doctor spent a lot of time lying on the floor. She wished she were a few inches taller, because then maybe she’d be tall enough to make her tally marks on the ceiling, and then she’d have something to stare at. 

“You could always stare at _me_.”

The Doctor practically jumped out of her skin. 

She scrambled up, pressing her back flat against the wall, staring at- at...the Master, lying casually on the floor right next to where she’d been sprawled. He had one arm tucked behind his head, like he was sunbathing. 

“No,” she said firmly. “ _No_. You’re not real.” 

“Aren’t I? That’s a shame.” 

She blinked, and...he was gone. Oh. Okay. Letting out a shaky sigh, the Doctor pressed her hands against her face, fingertips rubbing at her eyes. 

“Oh, don’t do that, dear, you’ll hurt yourself.” 

She jumped again, stumbling backwards and ending up sprawled over the small metal toilet in the corner. Hastily sitting back upright, she glared at the Master, who was now leaning against the wall. Still infuriatingly casual. 

“You’re not real,” the Doctor insisted again. 

“Believe whatever you feel like, love. Real or not, I’m here.” His voice dropped to a low purr, and she was reminded of the cheetah planet- the Master with fangs and yellow eyes, how the look had...almost suited him. 

“Back off,” she warned him, completely ineffectually. He laughed, then started stalking closer. Catlike, as if she were his prey. Perhaps she was. 

“All these weeks locked up in isolation, my dear Doctor, sure you aren’t feeling a little pent-up? I’d be very, _very_ happy to provide you with some release.” 

She growled, struggling to her feet, glaring daggers at the Master. “I said- _back off_.” Actually- no, fuck this, she was done giving him warnings. Drawing her fist back, the Doctor threw a punch-

And encountered nothing but air. 

“Well, that wasn’t very nice, dearie.” His voice was high-pitched, Scottish, a mockery of his previous body- she spun around, finding the Master perched on the flat wooden plank that passed as her bed. He had his legs crossed, and he was putting on a stern little expression that was quintessentially Missy. 

“Why are you here?” The Doctor folded her arms, and glared at him. Even if he was just a manifestation of her own subconscious, he could at least provide a decent reason for his existence. 

The Master sighed. He uncrossed his legs, leaning forward a bit, and when he gazed up at her...his expression was _soft_. Sweet, like O’s, when he’d stood up to greet her in the outback. Just as gentle as he’d looked when he’d stared into her eyes as she stood paralysed in the Matrix chamber, and told her how much he was going to hurt her. 

She couldn’t trust his softness. She kept right on glaring. 

“Do I really need a reason to visit my dearest friend in prison, Theta?” 

“Yes.” 

“Fine.” The Master huffed out a breath, and flopped back against the bed. “Ooh, that’s hard. Not giving you many creature comforts in here, are they? No sense of luxury.” 

“It’s a prison,” she reminded him flatly. “C’mon. Answers. Why are you here?” 

“I wanted to see you, after you so ungraciously left a _human_ to kill me,” he said, his voice turning sharp. “Maybe it’s a little bit satisfying, to see you locked up. Maybe it’s a _lot_ satisfying. Finally, the great _Doctor_ , getting stuck in a nasty little box she can’t escape from. Fitting punishment for not even having the courage to murder me yourself, I’d say, love.” 

Unimpressed, she stared at him. As cool as she was trying to stay, his words nevertheless smacked her right in the hearts. Maybe he _was_ just in her head. He knew just what to say to hurt her. Then again, hadn’t the Master always been good at that? 

“Are you dead, Koschei?” 

For a second, something flickered across his face at the sound of his name. Something sad and lonely, something longing. But then it was gone, replaced with a plastic smile. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Theta?” 

Ugh. The Doctor groaned, turning away from him and pressing her forehead against the wall as if that might help. The Master said nothing, quiet for so long that she thought maybe he really _had_ gone. 

Then a fingernail ran down the length of her spine- she yelped, spinning around and throwing another punch. It didn’t connect with anything, predictably. 

“My dear Doctor...how long has it been since anyone touched you, if _that’s_ your reaction to a bit of teasing? Poor thing. Why don’t you come here and let me make it all better?” His voice slipped into that mocking impression of Missy again towards the end, and the Doctor grimaced. The last thing she wanted was another reminder of how badly that friendship had ended. 

“You don’t like it when I talk like her, do you?” A footstep sounded behind her, and the Master was suddenly speaking in her ear. Despite all good sense telling her not to, the Doctor stood perfectly still, letting him stay close. “You don’t like being reminded of how it all ended. But there’s a part of you that’s worried, isn’t there? Worried that you missed something? That poor little Missy wasn’t quite as irredeemable at the end as you thought she was...” 

The Doctor shivered, and found herself fighting an inexplicable urge to relax, tip her head back, let him get even closer. Maybe she needed to seek out an old companion or two whenever she got out of here, see if hugging them hurt less than trying to hug the new lot. Because if she was craving affection from the _Master_ , clearly something was wrong. 

“Missy made her choice,” she said, fixing her eyes on the floor. Best to keep the subject _firmly_ away from her desires. “You. You made your choice, Master. _You_ left me, and then _you_ went looking at things you shouldn’t have, and _you_ decided to betray me as O, and _you_ gave me the Death Particle, and- and that was all you. All of it. You’re doin’ this to yourself, I’m not responsible.” 

“Oh, Doctor. Don’t you wish you really believed that?” The Master laughed, the sound of it echoing around the room. It was a proper deranged cackle; the sort she hadn’t heard in a good long while. Missy had done it once or twice, hadn’t she? 

“I do believe it,” she insisted, standing as stock still as she had done in the paralysis field. As if he’d read her mind, the Master walked in front of her, bending down just a little with that same soft, pitying expression on his face. 

“No, Theta. Deep down, you want this. Want to be punished. You do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even be here. You could put in any amount of effort and figure out where you are, what the guard schedule is, how to escape. But you’ve just- _sat around_ and let yourself believe this is the perfect prison, because you think you _deserve_ to be in here for what you did to me.” 

“I don’t- don’t think that,” the Doctor insisted. It sounded like a weak objection even to her. 

“Don’t you?” The Master reached up, his hand cupping her cheek. She hated herself for leaning into it. “Maybe you should prove it to me. Escape. Prove that you don’t deserve to be in here.” 

She glared at him dully, a miserable expression somewhat undercut by the way he was now stroking her hair with his fingertips, and she was pressing into the touch. He was so confusing to her. The Doctor had never hated anyone more, but she missed affection. She missed _his_ affection. 

“I thought you wanted me to stay in here because I deserve it,” she countered. This was hardly an argument. This was the Master throwing out point after point, and her stumbling desperately after whatever conclusion he wanted her to come to. If he was real, he’d be so smug about the effect he was having on her. 

“Oh, my dear...” The Master pressed closer, both of his hands suddenly on the sides of her face. It was a vulnerable position- the Doctor found herself suddenly very aware that if he gripped harder and twisted, he could snap her neck. But she knew he wouldn’t. “I could never break you. I never could. But _this_...this has done it for me. I suppose I should be thanking your jailers... _But_ ,I like you with a little more fight in you.” 

As if snapping out of a trance, the Doctor suddenly scowled. She jerked her head away from his hands- backing off- starting to pace circles around him. Just as frantic as she had been when she’d first gotten here. 

“You’re not really here. That’s just logical,” she decided. “All the jumpin’ around, the fact I can’t touch you even though you can touch me- if you were here, I’d have hit you in the face and I’d have bloody knuckles by now. But I don’t. So you aren’t real. Which means...it means that you’re in my head. But, but...you could be in my head, or _in my head_. My imagination, or telepathically connecting with me. Are you gonna tell me which?” 

She stopped her pacing in front of the Master, rapidly tapping her foot on the floor. He looked mildly amused, rapt with attention, as if she was telling an interesting story instead of theorising about his own existence. “Well? Are you?” 

“No,” the Master said lightly. “That would be no fun. The Doctor with answers is _boring_. I like you questioning everything you know. Oh, the look on your face when I told you what you were, Theta.” He grinned, closing his eyes like he was savouring something particularly delicious. “Mm. _Lovely_.” 

She just stood there, scowling at him, refusing to be taken in by any more of his antics. “Why are you here, then, if you’re not gonna tell me if you’re real or not?” 

“Because,” the Master said, his grin vanishing in an instant. It terrified her, deep down, how quickly his mood could change. From cheery to bone-chillingly dark and scary in less than a second, or vice versa. “I want to give you hope. That’s when you get interesting, Doctor. When you’ve got something to cling to. And when that hope is fulfilled, or crushed... _oh_. Practically sustains me, that does.” 

The Doctor folded her arms, doing her very best to keep her expression neutral. Truthfully, she already had a little hope. Hope that the Master was still alive, because he never died when he was supposed to. 

And if that hope grew...well, she’d have to escape, wouldn’t she? Something tickled the back of her mind, and told her that she’d been lying to herself- that there was a pattern to the guards’ patrols, it was based on pi times the number of— 

“What do you want to tell me,” she snapped, before that thought could go too far. Just in case. 

“Sixty eight, twenty two, thirteen, apple-gamma-ten-D. Coordinates in spacetime, Theta. Take your TARDIS there- speaking of, you can _feel_ that she’s down in the storage hold, can’t you? And then you’ll find me.” The Master reached out to touch the side of her face. “See you in ten seconds or so, love.” 

The Doctor opened her mouth to respond, and he was gone. She spun around in her cell, half-expecting to see him perched tauntingly on the toilet, but...he was really gone. And she suddenly felt exhausted. 

Stumbling to her bed, she slumped down, head thudding against the thin pillow. _Sixty eight, twenty two, thirteen, apple-gamma-ten-D_. She rolled the sequence around in her head again and again. Empty space, it was just a patch in the middle of empty space. 

It could be her brain throwing up random coordinates in a desperate attempt to motivate her to escape. It probably was. There was nothing there, nothing at all. 

Unless there _was_ something there. Someone. And oh, it was a seed of hope that was too large to ignore. The Master surely didn’t deserve to be found, didn’t deserve any more of her attention. 

But she’d never been too good at giving the Master what he deserved, had she?

Groaning, the Doctor rolled onto her stomach, burying her entire face into her pillow. Fuck him and his mind games. She was going to be having some _very_ stern words when she found him. 

And she _was_ going to try and find him, she realised. 

She was going to take a nap. And then she was going to escape this damned prison once and for all. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! comments and kudos are very very much appreciated <3


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